The United States on Wednesday claimed a United Nations meeting of world leaders on the COVID-19 pandemic was being designed to allow Beijing to spread "propaganda," stoking months of bickering at the world body between the superpowers.
The two-day meeting of the U.N. General Assembly begins Thursday with some 53 heads of state, 39 heads of government and 38 ministers due to make pre-recorded video statements, including U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the special session of the 193-member General Assembly should have been held earlier, that it had been "pre-engineered to serve China's purposes" and complained that questions at panel discussions on Friday would be restricted.